


The Dragon Consumes

by Jujux



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Cradle Series - Will Wight
Genre: ASOIAF with Cradle magic system, Crossover, F/M, R Plus L Equals J, Soul Based Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 06:30:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20830931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jujux/pseuds/Jujux
Summary: The terrors in the night.





	The Dragon Consumes

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!
> 
> I was reading the latest book from one of my favourite series(Cradle, by Will Wight) and I couldn't help thinking that it would make a great crossover with ASOIAF.
> 
> Since I couldn't get this scene out of my head and there aren't many Cradle fics on this site, I decided to write it down. 
> 
> It's basically the Cradle magic system(which is probably my favourite magic system in fantasy) in ASOIAF.
> 
> I am not planning to make this into a full story at this time, but if I would, this scene would be somewhere in the middle of it.
> 
> Cheers!

#### 

Jason Mallister

Jason Mallister slowly made his way to the top of the swamp oak he found just outside the camp. It was hard to find a good-sized tree in The Neck from where he could keep watch, but this she-oak was a good forty or fifty feet tall, if he could get anywhere near its top it should do just fine.

Jason was the head of a prominent Riverlands house, House Mallister of Seaguard. Like most Riverlands houses, they were sworn to the Tullys, even if their linage was prouder than that of the Lords of Riverrun. The Mallisters once claimed the title of ‘Kings of the Trident’ many years back - their king ancestor, which Jason was named after, was said to bore the rank of Overlord. Unfortunately, since the Blackfyres conquered Westeros, the Mallisters did not produce even a single Underlord. 

Jason himself was a Truegold, quite close to Underlord, but he might as well be a thousand miles away, he knew that he would never reach Underlord in his lifetime. He was too old and even if his house had the resources, he was not worth the investment.

He, like most of the Mallisters, followed the Path of the Silver Eagle, a Path that only had Enforcer techniques. But their enforced bodies were the best in the Seven Kingdoms. While usually body enforcements gave speed and power, the Silver Eagle enforcement techniques also increased all senses. Eyesight, smell, hearing, and awareness – everybody knew the Mallisters as the best scouts and watchers in the Seven Kingdoms. 

Jason finally made it to the top of the old tree and was pleased to see that it was a good spot to keep an eye on the southern side of the camp. His son Patrek, who followed the same Path as him, was watching the northern side.

They were marching through The Neck, heading towards the North under the order of the Overlord King Stannis, who was the self-proclaimed King of the Seven Kingdoms now. 

The Mallisters only answered to the initial call of King Stannis because they were promised revenge on the Freys and, if Jason was being honest, they hoped that if they proved their loyalty to Stannis he might name them Lords Paramounts of the Trident in place of the extinct Tullys. 

And maybe with the wealth that came with that his son Patrek could afford potions and sacred fruits that could raise him to Underlord which would greatly increase his family’s stature in the Seven Kingdoms.

So, Jason, his son and all his available men marched towards the Twins under the command of one of Stannis' strongest generals, Underlord Randyll Tarly. When they reached the Twins, they were shocked to find all the Freys already butchered. Every single one of them was cut into pieces. He had no idea who could have done that, Walder Frey might have been old, but the weasel was still an Underlord and it took considerable power to slay him. 

It was obviously the work of a sword artist, but which sword artist could have done that? 

Jason had a really bad feeling about all of that. And if there was one thing he trusted above all, it was his instinct. 

When Underlord Randyll Tarly told them that a raven came from King Stannis that ordered them to go to the Northern kingdom and take it from the Boltons, he wanted to refuse and take his men home. No army ever went past The Neck in ten thousand years. 

But how could a Truegold refuse such a strong Underlord like Radyll Tarly, or even worse, the Overlord King Stannis, who could turn his entire house into ashes without breaking a sweat?

So here he was, unwillingly stuck in the middle of a swamp, surrounded by darkness and fog, up in an oak tree, keeping watch and hoping from all his heart that the legends surrounding The Neck were not true.

It was said that the small people living here, called crannogmen, followed Paths of poisons that no Iron Body could cure and that could kill you slowly and painfully. And that wasn’t even the worst of things, it was also said that they had powerful lizard-lions and snake-like remnants under their control, so powerful that they could even fight off Archlords. 

There was no wonder that no army ever passed The Neck in thousands of years. 

Lord Tarly assured them that none of that was true, and even if it was, the crannogmen were only loyal to the Starks. They had no reason to defend the Boltons who were the ones now ruling the North, so they would let them pass without interfering, perhaps they would even join them. 

Jason very much doubted that, but it wasn't his place to challenge an Underlord.

He found a comfortable spot at the top of the oak, his enforced body easily offering him the balance he needed and he started cycling his madra and focusing his senses. It was hard to ignore all the sounds around him, frogs, crickets, flies, owls, and all sorts of sacred beasts or remnants he couldn’t see, nor he wanted to, but he was an experienced watcher.

Lord Tarly ordered large fires to be lit in order to protect them from the night remnants, so they ended up with eight bright fires twice the size of a man surrounding the camp.

As far as Jason could tell, they were two days away from Moat Cailin, which was the border with the North. He couldn’t wait to get away from these swamps.

But he was also worried that they had very little information on what was going on in the North. 

After the Red Wedding, when the Young Wolf was killed, the North closed itself off while the people from the South fought against each other. 

He heard rumors like everyone else about Stannis’ red seer claiming that the Dreadgod of Ice was waking up beyond the Wall. But he thought they were no more believable than those about the Pirate King Euron Greyjoy and his followers being close to waking up the Drowned Dreadgod, but still, it was not good to walk blindly into foreign lands.

The only thing that gave him a little confidence was that they were led by Lord Tarly, who was one of the strongest Underlords around. Lord Reese Bolton was an Underlord too, but not one that could ever hope to match Lord Tarly’s strength. And besides Lord Tarly, they also had an army close to one thousand sacred artists, perhaps half of them Truegolds. There was no way the Northmen could match that.

He was distracted from his musings by a loud whistle coming from the north side of the camp, where his son stood guard and Jason, after making sure his son was safe, set his enforced sight there, praying that it wasn’t one of those powerful remnants. 

Jason breathed a sigh of relief when he felt that they were only two people coming, although both of them were veiled and he couldn’t feel their power when he swept over their spirit. 

Tarly quickly arranged their army facing North, preparing for whatever it was that it was coming. A thousand men and women were quickly ready for battle.

Jason’s enforced eyes could see them now, a lean dark-haired young man, and a young woman with brown hair. 

What shocked him were the wolf spirits casually walking next to both of them. One glowing white as snow and the other bright grey. 

Starks?

It wasn’t possible! Everybody knew that they were all dead, and the secrets of the Path of Coming Winter was dead with them, yet the evidence was in front of him. 

Every time a Stark was born they bonded with a wolf spirit. It was said they could only be fed by Stark madra and that the spirits could soothe and recover strained madra channels. 

Lord Randyll confidently stepped forward, in front of the two newcomers and spoke: “Who are you two?”

It was the girl that answered: “I am Arya Stark and this is Jon Snow.” Jason could see now that she had the grey eyes of the North. She was dressed in grey leathers, loose enough to allow her uninhibited movement and had a thin sword sheathed on her right hip.

“Arya Stark is dead, all the Starks are,” Lord Tarly offered. “We are here to free the North from the Bolton rule.”

“The Boltons are gone. Take your armies and go back to where you came from.” It was the lad who spoke this time in a commanding voice. Unlike the girl claiming she was Arya Stark, he was dressed all in black, Jason doubted he could have seen his body in the deep night if it wasn’t for his enforced vision.

“We are here to bring the North under King Stannis’ rule, boy, I don’t care who rules it now,” Lord Tarly said with disdain. He then turned towards Arya: “If you truly are Arya Stark, come with me and bend the knee to King Stannis and he will help you advance to Underlord and make you Warden of the North, like your forefathers before you. He might even find you a highborn husband, even if you are sullied by a bastard.” Randyll threw a disgusted look at the one called Jon Snow while he spoke. 

The lad showed no emotion at Tarly’s words.

“The North belongs to the Starks and we won’t bow to southern rulers again!” Arys Starks said sharply. “Take your armies and return to where you came from!” she echoed Jon Snow’s words. “Or stay here and die.”

Lord Tarly laughed loudly at the girl’s words. 

The last thing Jason wanted to do was laugh, he tried to sweep those two again with his spirit, but he still got nothing. Whatever rank they were they hid it well. 

“Are your soldiers in agreement with you, my lord?” Jon asked in a cold voice that sent shivers down Jason’s spine, the lad’s hand was caressing the white spirit wolf’s head as he spoke. 

The rest of the army answered by drawing their swords. 

It was then when Jason noticed the fire aura moving away from the great fires and wrapping itself around every man and woman in their camp like a warm cloth in the middle of the winter. And it wasn’t just fire aura, there was something different too, a black aura that he couldn’t recognize. 

Only when Jon put out a hand forward, with his palm up, Jason recognized it. The path of the mad dragons, the path of fire and destruction - The Path of the Blackfyre. His brain struggled to make sense of it all, this shouldn’t be possible, all Targaryens were dead. 

Jason tried to yell, to warn everybody, but he didn't manage to get any words out before the lad closed his fist and cyclones of fire and destruction ignited around every man and woman there except himself, burning them so fast that they didn’t even have time to scream. He knew then for sure that this Jon was a descendant of the mad kings. 

Jason Mallister watched in horror how in no more than two heartbeats every soldier out there was reduced to ashes, including his own men and his son. Even Lord Tarly himself, who was a very strong Underlord and could enforce himself with soulfire was no match for the angry red and black fire. 

Gods, what were these two? 

Jason's body was numb, his eyes fixed on the scorched tree where his son was standing watch earlier and where now only his ashes remained. His mind refusing to accept that all his men and his own son were dead in a blink of an eye. 

A sliver of hope rose in his breast when a thousand remnants rose from the ashes, most of them angry and ready to avenge the deaths of their owners. 

But his hope was short-lived. The brown-haired girl pulled out her thin sword and activated a Ruler technique that made the sword ring like a bell and all of a sudden countless nearly invisible blades of sword aura exploded from it and from every other sword lying around next to their owner’s ashes, creating a massive storm of sharp death around their camp that shredded to pieces every single remnant out there. 

Now he understood what happened to the Freys.

The Blackfyre patted his spirit wolfs head, turned around and calmly walked away, but the girl stood there for a few more heartbeats looking around until her cold grey eyes found him. 

Her left hand went to her sword again and she drew it and sheathed it so fast that even with his enforced vision Jason couldn’t follow her movement. But his enforced body felt it. 

When the girl just turned around and walked away as if nothing happened, Jason thought that maybe he imagined it, but then all of his senses started to panic as they felt a silver razor-sharp striker technique flying his way. 

Jason quickly enforced his body with his strongest technique ‘The Steel Feather’, it was a technique that could absorb even a few Underlord level strikes. 

But he knew it was useless even before the technique passed through his defenses like a hot knife through butter, releasing him from this world and reuniting him with his son.


End file.
